


Faith Actually

by RosiePaw



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 18:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: It had been such a lovely day - until Aziraphale opened his mouth and inserted the golden brown tip of his own oxford.





	Faith Actually

It had been such a lovely day.  They’d traded bodies back and gone to lunch at the Ritz and drunk champagne and yes, he might have chattered on a bit, but Crowley had looked, might one say, fondly amused as he listened, slouching there in his chair in a way that made perfect sense now that Aziraphale had temporarily inhabited his body and discovered that yes, the old serpent really did have a few extra vertebrae compared to normal humans.  Not to mention something odd in how his hip joints were put together.  Aziraphale hadn’t been able to put his finger on it – metaphorically speaking of course, he hadn’t actually tried running his fingers along Crowley’s hip joints.  And in any case, he’d had other things on his mind at the time.  Like trying to find suitable underwear in Crowley’s wardrobe, because if he had to go to Hell, he was certainly not going to do it wearing a scrap of black silk that was certain to end up uncomfortably wedged between the buttocks.  Although now that he thought about it, Crowley’s buttocks were rather less ample than his own and thus offered fewer opportunities for wedging…

And _no_ , he was not going to think about his friend’s arse.  He was only all too obviously doing so only to distract himself from the matter at hand, which was that it had been such a lovely day and then he’d ruined it.

After the Ritz, they’d taken a cab back to the bookshop, as the Bentley was still waiting at Crowley’s flat until such time as Crowley returned in his proper body to drive it.  (They had, after all, transferred only bodies, not acquired skills.)  There had been a lot more champagne and more conversation.  It was growing fairly late when Crowley sobered himself up and rose to his feet, preparatory to returning to his flat.  At which point Aziraphale remembered a bit of housekeeping he’d been meaning to mention.

“Ah, Crowley, I took the liberty of…  Well, that splotch on the floor was hideous and it would have taken _decades_ for the last of the holiness to evaporate so that you could deal with it safely yourself and I was, as it were, on the scene…”

“So you cleaned my splotch up for me.”  There it was again, that air of fond amusement.

“Well, yes.  What _was_ that anyway?”

“Ligur.”

“In your flat?”

“Not for long.  He and Hastur broke in, but I’d set a bit of trap using that thermos of holy water…”

“The one I gave you?”  Aziraphale was abruptly sober himself, and he hadn’t even done it on purpose.  He didn’t like remembering that evening.

“Yeah, sorry about that, I know you didn’t want me to use it.”

“I don’t care if you used it on _Ligur_!” Aziraphale snapped.

Crowley stared.  At least Aziraphale thought he was staring, he’d put his dark glasses back on, which made it hard to tell.  And which continued to make it hard to tell as the perhaps-stare continued.  The dark, blank lenses made the stare even more uncomfortable than it would have been in any case.  It was in this state of discomfort that caused Aziraphale to blurt out, “I hope you don’t think I’m going to restock your supply!”

The sudden stiffness in Crowley’s spine was just barely perceptible.  Then it vanished again.  “That’s fine, angel,” he drawled.  “I’ll just pay some humans to do it for me.  Probably have to find a new picklock, though, I think Shadwell might be retiring.”

Having already placed the golden brown tip of his oxford in his own mouth, Aziraphale then proceeded to jam it down his throat.  “Really, Crowley, you can be such a coward sometimes!”

The spinal stiffness was back.  “A coward,” repeated the demon, soft and dangerous.

“Yes, it’s a cowardly thing to do, running away and abandoning m-, well, everything!”

“I beg-, _asssked_ you to come with me!  Twissse!  And it would have been three timesss except the bookssshop wasss on fire and I thought…”

“I wasn’t talking about Alpha Centauri!”

“Then what are you talking about?  C’mon, angel, after sssix thousand yearsss sssurely we don’t have to beat around the busssh with each other.  Sssay what you mean!”

“I always do!”  If there was such a thing as shouting primly, Aziraphale was managing to do it.  “I’m an angel, I can’t do anything else!”

“Bollocksss, angel, I’ve met your _colleaguessssss_!”  Crowley paused a moment, apparently to get his hiss under control.  “You know what?  It’s late and I’m tired…”

“We don’t get tired.”

“Maybe I’m just tired of _this_.  Thanks for cleaning up the splotch.  I’ll let myself out.”  And he turned and strode away, just as he had that miserable evening in St James’ Park, except that this time he snapped his fingers.  The bookshop doors opened to allow his departure.  The last Aziraphale saw of Crowley, his arm was still raised from a second finger snap as the doors slammed shut behind him.

***

The days went by, eventually turning into weeks.  Customers came, despite Aziraphale’s best efforts, and went, often due to his best efforts.  Crowley remained notable for his absence.  Aziraphale did a surreptitious survey of the pubs he knew to be Crowley’s favourites.  He heroically refrained from extending the survey to every pub in London.  Crowley might not even be in London.  He might have gone to Alpha Centauri.

The obvious place to check would have been Crowley’s flat, but Aziraphale had never been given a key.  He’d expected to find one in the pocket of the rather tight trousers Crowley was wearing when they swapped bodies, but this was not the case.  On further thought, he realized that even if there _had_ been a key in the pocket, he would have had no hope of removing it while still wearing the trousers.

He ended up accessing the flat that evening the same way Crowley almost certainly did: he snapped his fingers to open the door and then snapped them again to lock it behind him.  But that had been a singular occasion.  It didn’t imply license to do the same any time he liked.  He wouldn’t have wanted anyone accessing his bookshop that way.

All right, he wouldn’t have wanted _just_ anyone accessing his bookshop that way.  He was fine with Crowley doing it.  He wished Crowley would do it again.  Soon.

In the face of Crowley’s failure to do so, Aziraphale was faced with the necessity of knocking on the door of his flat.  That bit was fine.  But if Crowley actually opened the door – not a sure thing – Aziraphale would have to apologize.  Herein lay the rub.

Crowley might apologize quite blithely – “Angel! I'm sorry. I apologize. Whatever I said, I didn't mean it.”  But Aziraphale held himself to a higher standard.  True contrition required an understanding of the harm that had been done and a resolution not to do it again.  He didn’t have the first, not at all, and given that circumstance, how could he truly commit to the second?

He was still mulling over these questions one rainy afternoon when a rather damp young man with spectacles walked into the bookshop, looked around and on catching sight of Aziraphale, offered a diffident smile.

“Uh, hi!  You’re Mr Fell, right?  The Mr Fell who was in Tadfield recently?”

“Yes, certainly.  And you’re the witch’s young man?  I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Quite all right, there was a lot going on.  It’s Newton Pulsifer.”

“Newton – like Sir Isaac?”

Newton looked quite pleased.  “Yes!  People don’t usually get that.  It was my father’s idea, after my mother vetoed Galileo.”

“Fine names, both of them.  But where are my manners?  Come have a hot cuppa!”  Aziraphale ushered Newton into the shop’s back room.

“Thanks, but Madame Tracy’s been plying me with tea all day.”

“Cocoa, then?  And how _are_ Madame Tracy and Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell?”

“In the middle of moving, mostly.  That’s why I’m in London, to help them pack up and haul boxes around.  They’re both of them getting on and they haven’t got anyone else and, well, Sergeant Shadwell helped me out when I needed it – Oh!  Cocoa!  Thanks! – And if it hadn’t been for the Sergeant, I would never have met Anathema.”

“And how is Anathema?  Please, sit down, oh!”  Newton seemed perilously close to sitting on the sofa and quite suddenly, Aziraphale discovered that he didn’t want him to.  He hastily removed a stack of books from a chair and offered that instead.  “Here you go!  Please, sit down.  You were saying about Anathema?”

“She’s fine, we’re fine, we, uh, well, you probably don’t want to know about that.  We’re fine.  How’s, I don’t know his name, the ginger bloke who threw Anathema’s book at her?”

“Crowley.  I have no idea.  It’s been some time since I last saw him.  More cocoa?”

Newton Pulsifer – more usually called Newt, although Aziraphale hadn’t given him a chance to say so yet – was young, inexperienced and mild-mannered.  He was not an idiot.  “Uh, lovers’ quarrel?”

All right, he was something of an idiot.  Madame Tracy, for example, could have warned him that such a blunt approach would get exactly the reaction that it did: Aziraphale sputtered, denied the charges and attempted to refill Newt’s still mostly-full mug.

Newt bravely pushed on.  “It’s just that Anathema and I have a sort of running joke about how we won’t really be together until we’ve had our first big lovers’ quarrel.  We keep trying to top each other with improbably wild guesses as to how it might come about.  But so far, we’ve only had mild disagreements and they peter out because, well.”

Aziraphale found himself far more interested than he would have expected.  “Well?” he prompted, leaning forward.

“Anathema’s far braver than I am, you see.  It’s not always easy to follow her lead.  But that’s how we got onto the airfield, and look how that turned out!  So I just remind myself to have faith in her, and that seems to help things work themselves out.”

Aziraphale thought about it.  “But what if she weren’t?  Braver, I mean.  What if she were something of a coward?”

“Mr Fell, isn’t your… Mr Crowley, isn’t he the one who arrived at the airfield in a flaming car?  If I were driving a car and it caught fire, I would hit the brakes and jump out.  And I’m not even a coward, really, I’m just not above average when it comes to bravery.  I think you’d have to be above average to keep driving the car.”

“At the time the car caught fire it was passing through a wall of flame.  Jumping out wasn’t really an option.”

“Mr Crowley drove his car through a wall of flame.” Newt’s brow furrowed a bit.  “On purpose?  Not by some sort of freak accident?”

“He was trying to get to Tadfield,” Aziraphale explained.

“Why?”

“Well, I’d told him to meet me there.”

The furrow deepened.  “Can you give me any more examples of the glitch?”

The furrow developed a twin on Aziraphale’s brow.  “Glitch?  I’m sorry, is that a modern word?”

“Oh, sorry!  Uh, anomalous behaviour.  If someone’s really a coward, acting bravely is anomalous behaviour.  The more examples you have of a glitch occurring, the better your chances of figuring out what’s causing it.”

“Ah, very good.  Let me think…  Oh!  Crowley ran into my bookshop when it was on fire.  That’s how he was able to retrieve Anathema’s book.  I’m dreadfully sorry about the scorch marks, by the way.”

Newt waved this off.  “She was curious about them, but not really upset.  I’ll let her know.  But Crowley… he ran into the shop just to save Anathema’s book?”

“That doesn’t seem likely,” Aziraphale admitted.  “When we found it in the Bentley he wasn’t at all concerned about returning it to Anathema.  You know, I’m really not sure about the sequence of events.  I was… away at the time the fire occurred.  I didn’t find out about it until I contacted Crowley afterwards.  He’d been drinking, which isn’t unusual for Crowley, but he said something about losing his best friend.  Crowley doesn’t have many friends.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I was sorry, of course.  But then I got down to business.  I told Crowley I needed something from the shop, he said the shop had burnt down…  Actually, he may have said that before, when he mentioned the friend.  In any case, he repeated the information.  Then it turned out he’d saved the one book I wanted him to get, which was lucky, so I told him to meet me in Tadfield.”

Having finished his recitation of events, Aziraphale looked up to find Newt staring at him.  “Wow.  I thought _I_ was bad at this sort of thing.”

Aziraphale bristled a little.  “Yes, I probably should have said something more about his friend, but time was running out and there was a lot to be done.  Oh.”  He deflated.  “Do you think Crowley might still be cross with me over that?”

“Mr Fell, did Mr Crowley know you were going to be away?”

“No, it was an impromptu trip.”

“When you’re in London, where do you spend most of your time.”

“Why, in the bookshop.”

“So Mr Crowley arrived at the bookshop and discovered that it was on fire.  He didn’t know you were away.  What’s your best guess as to where Mr Crowley thought you were?”

Aziraphale blinked in shock.  “Oh.  Oh, my dear.  Not you, Newton, I mean…  The friend – he meant _me_.  But why didn’t he just say so?”

“He sort of did.”  Newt hesitated, then ploughed on.  “He told you he’d lost his best friend.  You told him you were sorry and then you changed the subject.”

“I did, didn’t I?” murmured Aziraphale.

When he seemed disinclined to say anything more, Newt asked, “Any other occurrences of the glitch that involve Mr Crowley risking danger to get to where you were?”

“I think we need may to stop calling it a glitch.  Yes, Crowley’s previously come to my aid.  Back in…  Well, fairly recently he risked himself to get me out of… a rather bad situation.”

He couldn’t give this young man the details.  Couldn’t tell him about Crowley, in a suit as sharp as his cheekbones, mincing to the rescue on tiptoe and yelping with each step he took on consecrated ground.  About Crowley, on tiptoe, leaning against a pew for balance and yet still managing to sound coolly foreboding as he informed the Nazis about the demonic intervention in their bombing schedule.  Crowley, doing the Evil Things Aziraphale couldn’t have done: bombing a church, taking lives.

Not that Aziraphale hadn’t made his own contribution.  _Saving_ lives was arguable a Good Thing, even when the argument was weakened a bit by the fact that one of the parties saved was a demon.  Good Things were Aziraphale’s specialty and he did them with style.

Except that Crowley had also done a Good Thing: he’d saved the books.  It was unexpected.  It was charming.  And given Crowley’s general indifference to books, it had to be something he had done for the sole purpose of making Aziraphale smile.

Remembering the moment still made Aziraphale smile.

Aziraphale didn’t realize he’d been lost in memories until a fresh mug of hot cocoa appeared in front of him, offered in a human hand.  “Thank you, Newton.”

“Most people just call me Newt.”

“What, like a salamander?”

“Huh.  I suppose.”  Newt resumed his seat, holding a fresh mug of his own.  “What if we redefine the glitch?”

“Not a coward acting bravely but someone brave acting cowardly?”  Newt nodded.  “I suppose you want occurrences.”  Newt nodded.  “Hmmm.  It’s just that… sometimes, when faced with danger, Crowley’s response has been to propose running away.  Oh, I don’t know!  Perhaps it’s not so much cowardice as despair.  He despairs and wants to abandon… everything.”

“Including you?”

“Yes, sometimes.  Not necessarily to danger, although in some ways being abandoned to grieve alone is worse.  When _everything_ was in danger, he proposed that we run away together, although…”

“Although?” Newt prompted.

“After I refused, I thought he might go on his own.  But he didn’t.  When I needed his assistance, he was still here.  And…  I can’t say I was surprised.  At some level, I suspect I’d relied on him not to go.”

“Maybe the running-away idea was the best he could come up with.”

“Maybe so, but ‘best’ doesn’t mean ‘good enough,’” retorted Aziraphale with some heat.  “You can’t just abandon things, you have to keep working at them!  You have to have faith that there’s a way, if you can just find it.”  He paused, then continued more quietly, “Perhaps that’s it.  I think… Crowley lacks faith.”

“I think,” said Newt, “That Mr Crowley has faith in _you_ , Mr Fell.  Like I have faith in Anathema.”

***

Hours after Newt had left, Aziraphale was still pondering their discussion.  Anathema’s young man was surprisingly perceptive and, as he’d explained, “sort of a professional glitch diagnoser – it’s part of what computer engineer is supposed to do.”  Still, he was quite young, even by human standards.  There was something that felt off in his diagnosis.  Something missing.

Aziraphale’s faith in other angels might have been shaken, stirred and thoroughly shattered by recent events, but his faith in the Almighty remained intact at the core of his being.  It was different for Crowley, of course.  Being unceremoniously pitched out of Heaven would destroy anyone’s faith in the Almighty.  Satan ruled his minions through fear rather than faith (which Aziraphale thought explained a lot about Crowley’s approach to plant care).  Yes, Aziraphale was reasonably fine with Crowley not having faith.  What made him uncomfortable was the idea of Crowley having faith in _him_ – and him alone.  It felt unbalanced, unequal.  He wasn’t anyone’s god.  He wouldn’t allow himself to be made to be.

It was different for Newt to have faith in Anathema.  Humans had faith in lots of things, including things that didn’t merit it at all.  Consider weather forecasts.

And of course he’d only heard Newt’s point of view.  Anathema’s might be different.  He didn’t like to ask her, though.  Anathema had never quite forgiven Crowley for the bicycle-meets-Bentley incident.  Aziraphale would have had to make his queries without letting it slip that they involved Crowley – and without that context, it would appear that he was being unforgivably nosy about her relationship with Newt.

All right.  Dead end, back up to the last junction.  Perhaps he should examine the one relationship he had a right to be nosy about: his own with Crowley.  If Crowley had faith in him, did he have faith in Crowley?  Well, yes, he’d said as much to Newt, he relied on Crowley to be there when needed.  Or at least to leave a note if he ran off to Alpha Centauri instead.

Aziraphale frowned.  That wasn’t it.  It wasn’t large enough for the space Crowley occupied in his life, a space that dated its existence from the moment when Crowley slithered up next to him on the Garden Wall and muttered, “Bit harsh for a first offence.”

At the time, Aziraphale had never met anyone who said things like that.  Six thousand years later, he’d still never met anyone who said them as well as Crowley.  Crowley’s remarks were like burrs.  They made Aziraphale uncomfortable, but they stuck.  And after they’d stuck long enough, they made him think.  They made him ask questions that on his own…

Oh.

***

When Aziraphale had approached the door of Crowley’s flat the evening of the day the earth didn’t end, it had seemed warm and welcoming.  He and Crowley had come up with a plan.  It was a very good plan, but that didn’t ensure it would work.  Either or both of them might fail to survive.  This might well be the last night they both existed.  If Aziraphale couldn’t spend the night with Crowley himself – a tactical error, he regretfully agreed, although he had to ask – then he could at least spend it in Crowley’s home, with Crowley’s things.

The foreboding portal he now faced resembled the door of his memories only in its location.  Well, and all of its other merely physical details.  It just _felt_ completely different.

Aziraphale had considered bringing chocolate, flowers and wine.  But Crowley didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and any flowers Aziraphale brought would have paled in comparison to his magnificent houseplants.  Chocolate, flowers and wine had turned into two bottles of Talisker and a bottle of _Hors d'Age_ Calvados for old time’s sake.

Aziraphale set the bottles down, straightened his bow tie and prepared to face the be-bop.  He knocked.

There was no answer.

Heart failing to pound or even beat at all (Aziraphale having forgotten about it in his preoccupation with other things), he knocked again.

There was no answer.

Crowley might not be at home.  Crowley might be ignoring him.  Crowley might…  Could the demon have managed to procure holy water so quickly?  Except it wouldn’t have been quickly, would it?  It had been some weeks since they’d last seen each other.  Oh, Aziraphale shouldn’t have waited this long.  He should have come by sooner, if only to make sure Crowley wasn’t…  was all right.

Crowley had to be all right.

Aziraphale’s third knock was more like pounding and was accompanied by Aziraphale yelling Crowley’s name.

There was no answer.

Aziraphale steeled himself and snapped his fingers.  The door didn’t budge.  He could almost feel…  It was as if something psychically heavy had been pushed against it.  But not physically heavy.  A human would have no problem except with the physical lock.  Shadwell.  He could leave the bottles here and get Sergeant Shadwell…

No, wait.  What if Crowley were simply out?  And he came back and found the bottles, with no note or anything to explain why they were there?  He might guess Aziraphale had left them, but by the same token he might think that Aziraphale was trying to use alcohol to buy his way back into Crowley’s good graces...  Or evil graces, as it were.  Evil disgraces?  Never mind.  The important thing was that wasn’t Aziraphale’s intention _at all_.  He just wanted a chance to explain what he’d figured out.

He just wanted a chance.

Well, he wouldn’t get it standing here dithering.  He stooped down, gathered the bottles in his arms and straightened up again – to find himself eye-to-eye with Crowley.  Or not quite eye-to-eye, given that Crowley was slightly taller and was wearing his dark glasses.

“Right,” drawled the demon.  “I took too long to open the door, so you’re taking your bottles and going home.”      

“I came to apologize.”

Crowley leaned against the door frame, crossed his arms and stuck out his chin.  “Go ahead.”

“It’s, uh, it might take some time.”

“I’ve got time,” replied Crowley, still effectively blocking the doorway.

Aziraphale took a deep breath.  “I was wrong to call you a coward.  The truth is, we’re both cowards.”

Oh, dear.  That wasn’t quite how he’d meant to start off when he’d rehearsed this.

But Crowley’s forehead furrowed a bit, above the lenses that hid his eyes.  He straightened up and glanced down at the bottles.

“If that’s Calvados, then you’d better come in.”

Aziraphale dutifully did so, but as he passed through the doorway, he felt an odd tingle on his left side, almost like a mild electric shock.  It seemed to come from a complicated creation of metal and crystals leant against the wall.  The wires – silver? – were shaped into symbols he almost recognized.  “Passage,” possibly?  And “negation”?  But they were oddly placed in the overall matrix.

“Sorry, I thought I’d got that far enough away you wouldn’t feel it,” said Crowley.  “I can’t deactivate it myself without destroying it.”

“What _is_ it?”

“Commissioned it from Anathema.  The design’s based on a ward for containing demons.  She did the individual components herself, but she had Newt assemble them in the matrix before she activated it.  Instead of keeping demons in…”

“It keeps angels out.”  Aziraphale felt slightly ill, and not from the warding device.  That Crowley had felt he had to go to such lengths, that he might _still_ feel he needed to…  “Really, my d-  _Crowley_ , I would never force my way in where I wasn’t wanted.”

Crowley’s expression gave nothing away.  “Maybe not.  Anathema says hi, by the way.”

“I’m glad to hear that the two of you have made up,” Aziraphale offered.

“We haven’t.  She appreciated the recognition of her professional skills and the technical challenge my commission presented.  Also” – Crowley grinned toothily – “she overcharged me by a factor of 13.”

“So you miracled the money and paid her.”  Aziraphale tried not to sound judgemental.  He’d eaten too many dinners paid for with miracled funds to cast any stones at this point.

“It got me what I wanted – plus bonus points for tempting a human to avarice.”

“Are we still keeping track?  Does it matter any more?”

“Old habit.  Let’s see that Calvados.”  Crowley plucked the bottle from Aziraphale’s arms and walked away, leaving Aziraphale to follow with the Talisker.

“How was Newt, by the way?” Aziraphale asked.

“Dunno.  He wasn’t there when I drove down to pick up my commission.  I think Anathema said he was helping Shadwell and Tracy move.  Through here.”

“Through here” meant through the doorway into Crowley’s now splotch-free office.  He set the Calvados down on the desk, liberated the bottles of Talisker from Aziraphale to set down as well and then miracled two clean glasses into existence. 

“Have a seat,” he said pleasantly.

There was no guest seating in Crowley’s office.  There was no guest seating anywhere in Crowley’s flat, Aziraphale recalled.  Quite possibly there had never been any guests – at least, not welcome ones – until the night Aziraphale had stayed there.  And in a sense, not even then.  It had been Crowley’s body that had lain face down on the expensive bed linens, committing its own scent to Aziraphale’s memory with every in-taken breath.

No, for all that Crowley seemed to appreciate the sofa in the bookshop, the only seating in his flat was the throne-like chair behind his desk.  It reminded Aziraphale uncomfortably of Beelzebub’s throne of judgement.  He did not want to sit there.

“Have.  A.  Seat,” Crowley repeated, less pleasantly.

Aziraphale sat.

Crowley swung up onto the desk and tucked up those long, long legs, tailor-fashion.  The desk added to the height difference between them.  Crowley leant _down_ to offer Aziraphale a glass of Calvados.  He looked _down_ at Aziraphale through his dark glasses as he took a sip of his own glass.

The throne didn’t mean that Aziraphale was the judge here.  Quite the opposite.  He was the defendant, placed there to plead his case as best he could.  So be it.  He gathered himself and began, “I was wrong…”

“Already got that,” Crowley interrupted.  “What’s this about you being a coward?”

Aziraphale blinked.  “Intellectually, I mean.”

Crowley waved his glass in a go-on gesture.

“I don’t ask questions.  At least, I didn’t start out asking them.  I had to learn it from you.  _You_ ask questions all the time, and they make me think, and then _I_ started asking questions…  Angels don’t, as a rule.  They don’t even answer questions very well.  They shrug and say ‘Not my department,’ as if that’s enough.  It’s _not_ enough.  It’s _cowardly_.”  The little speech ended a bit more vehemently than Aziraphale had intended.

“Careful with the questions, angel,” Crowley said lightly.  Aziraphale realized that his heart must have started up again at some point, because it skipped a beat at the nickname.  “Look what happened to Eve.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath.  “Eve left the Garden with the whole world to explore, a flaming sword and her mate by her side.”

Oh dear, was that a bit too obvious?

“Still huffy because the delivery fellow caught your little trick with the sword?” Crowley chided teasingly.

Apparently not too obvious.  Aziraphale tried and failed to summon up an appropriate sense of relief.

Crowley sipped his Calvados.  “I don’t think that’s cowardice exactly.  Cowardice is hearing the questions and stopping your ears, refusing to let your mind think the thoughts.  Gabriel and his lot do that.  You don’t, of if you do sometimes, it’s only a for a bit.  Sometimes it takes you a while to work your way ‘round to confronting the question.”  The demon smiled very slightly, a mere quirk of his lips.  “Sometimes I go too fast for you.”

“If I’m not a coward than neither are you.  What might look like cowardice at first is a lack of faith.”

Crowley’s smile vanished.  “Let’s see you have faith,” he snarled, “After you’ve done an unplanned million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulphur.”

“Oh, my dear.”  Aziraphale started to rise.  Crowley pointed at the throne.  Aziraphale sat back down.

“I know, my dear, at least I know now.  As you said, sometimes it takes me a while, and Newt had to help me.”

This seemed to startle Crowley.  “Newt?”

“He’s very good with glitches,” Aziraphale explained.  “Your faith was stripped from you and it’s only recently begun to grown back, hasn’t it?”

“I don’t know about ‘begun.’  It might have already grown back all it’s going to.”  Crowley drew himself up, as if daring Aziraphale to contradict him.  “It might be permanently crippled.”

“We can see what happens as we go along,” Aziraphale suggested.  “You give me questions and make me think.  I give you… something to hang onto.  Except sometimes I fail to, and then you despair and start making plans to run away.”

“You’re not responsible for propping me up,” Crowley sneered.  The sneer might have been more cutting if Aziraphale hadn’t been fairly sure it was self-directed.

“You were never responsible for my education, and yet I’ve learned so much from you.  I hope to have the chance to learn more.  And no matter what anyone else might say, I would never be better off without you.”

Crowley cocked his head.  “Are you quoting Gabriel?”

“No, a gentleman who was passing by the shop at the moment you yelled that you were getting your ‘stuff’ and leaving.”

“Sounds like a real idiot.  Him, I mean.” The demon’s forehead furrowed slightly.  “Maybe me too.  It would be hard not to think about you.”  A pause.  “Even up in the stars.”  Another pause.  “It would be impossible,” he concluded glumly.

Aziraphale’s mouth was dry.  He took a sip of Calvados, and then took a chance.  “My dear, would you take off your glasses?”

Crowley froze, and Aziraphale feared he’d gone too far.  But then Crowley reached up, slipped off the dark glasses – and tossed them into Aziraphale’s lap.  He had dark shadows under his lovely golden eyes.

“They say in Heaven,” Aziraphale began cautiously, “That demons can’t love.”

“They say that in Hell, too.  Your average demon, if their car exploded, all they’d feel was anger at losing a valuable possession.  They wouldn’t have any moments, they’d just go after the bastard who’d robbed them.” Crowley frowned.  “Which I guess would be me for reshaping the M25 into a Satanic sigil in the first place.”

“Just as well you didn’t ‘go after’ yourself, my dear.  We needed you.”

“You managed that soldier fine on your own.  Ever find out where he went?”

“No and that’s not what I meant and you know it,” Aziraphale snapped.  Then he sighed.  “I _am_ a coward, even now.  _I_ needed you.  I should have said so, not tried to hide behind a plural pronoun.”

Crowley’s reply was to drain his glass, pour himself a refill and wave the bottle in the direction of Aziraphale’s glass.

“Thank you, my dear.”  Aziraphale held out the glass to let Crowley pour and searched for something to say that wouldn’t spook the demon any further.  “You know, I was delighted to see the Bentley waiting outside the next morning, and I knew you’d be happy to hear it hadn’t a scratch.  But it was so _expectant_.  I felt quite badly about forcing it to watch as I, well, _you_ got into a cab and left it behind.  There was simply no way to explain at that point.”

Crowley nodded. “Tell me about it.  I had to do a lot of talking to soothe its ruffled fenders when I finally got home.  But it’s forgiven me.  It’s a good car.”

It was on the tip of Aziraphale’s tongue to ask, “And am I a good angel?”  But this was both too coy and too direct.  Crowley had confirmed something Aziraphale had long suspected, but the way in which he’d done so suggested that he’d shy off further questioning along that line.  Aziraphale could perfectly well imagine Crowley replying, “No, you’re actually a bit of a bastard.”  He didn’t need to _hear_ Crowley say it as well.

They drank in silence for awhile.  If they’d been in the bookshop, it might have been a comfortable silence.  Aziraphale often pottered about while Crowley lounged on the sofa, playing games on his mobile.  But there were no distractions in Crowley’s flat.  Except the plants.  Would this be a good time to speak to Crowley about the plants?  Probably not.

The silence stretched on until it threatened to assume the proportions of the serpent Jörmungandr (whom Crowley had mentioned meeting once but otherwise seemed reluctant to discuss, saying only that, “Sometimes, angel, size does matter”).

Aziraphale set down his glass.  “Well, I should…”

“You could…”

They fell silent as simultaneously as they’d spoken.

After a moment, Crowley began again.  “That evening.  When we didn’t know yet that the bookshop had been restored.  You suggested I could stay here.  With you.”

“And you quite rightly reminded me that we were almost certainly both under surveillance.”

“We’re not now, at least not yet.  And it doesn’t matter any more, does it?  We’ve blown our cover.  We’re out in the open.”

Aziraphale held the breath he didn’t need, waiting for the next words, but it seemed that Crowley was done speaking.  The angel shook his head.  “Cowards, the both of us,” he said ruefully.  “Ask me now, my dear.”

“You could stay.”  Crowley looked past Aziraphale at the throne’s back and winced.  “Not there.  I could miracle a more comfortable chair.  Even a sofa, it could be a duplicate of the one you’ve got in the shop…”

“Crowley.”  Aziraphale looked straight into the golden eyes.  “You already have a bed.  Quite comfortable, too.  I’ve lain in it.”

Crowley stared, surprised enough to forget he had eyelids to blink with.

“I can’t say I’ll sleep, but I should like to stay close by.”  Aziraphale hesitated, then added, “We could pull the covers up over the both of us together.  If you wanted.”

Crowley set his glass down and unfolded, slithering off the desk and landing on his snakeskin-booted feet.  He held out a hand and, when Aziraphale took it, pulled him up from the chair.

“C’mon, bedroom’s this way.  You can help me mist the plants in the morning.”

“Yes, the plants,” said Aziraphale, following Crowley’s lead out of the office.  "I have some ideas about why you treat them the way you do.  It has to do with faith, actually…”


End file.
